'A Way of Flying' from the 'Disparates' (Follies / Irrationalities)
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) Spanish
Not on view
In one of the most striking prints from the series, five men wearing helmets in the shape of a bird’s head fly aided by wings strapped to their wrists and feet. The image has been interpreted as a metaphor of the latest political and philosophical currents, which were opposed by the most conservative sectors of Spanish society. Goya’s image can also be associated with late eighteenth-century spectacles featuring aerostatic balloons and parachute descents that were still popular in Madrid in the 1810s. The contraption worn by his figures also recalls a "new machine for flying" invented about 1808 by the Austrian clockmaker Jacques Degen and described in an 1809 periodical.
From the posthumous first edition published by the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid in 1864 under the title 'Los Proverbios'.
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